The Past and Future of High-strength Steel for Valve Springs
Sumie SUDA, Nobuhiko IBARAKI, Wire Rod & Bar Products Development Department, Kobe Works, Iron & Steel
Sector
For reduced fuel consumption, there is a rising demand
for downsizing and weight reduction in automobile
engine valve springs. Corresponding to this demand,
Kobe Steel has developed a high tensile strength steel
for the valve springs and has greatly improved upon
the conventional manufacturing process of the springs.
This article describes the current trends in high strength
steels for valve springs and the latest development status
of the super-high strength steels.
Introduction
There is an increasing demand to reduce the size of
the valve train in automobile engines. Part of the
demand is due to environmental concerns and part
is because of passenger safety. The environmental
aspect is caused by the need to reduce CO 2
emissions by improving fuel consumption. In an
automobile engine approximately 40% of energy
loss, other than direct heat loss, is due to friction
and 15%-50% of this is believed to be due to the
valve train. A reduction in size of the valve train
should reduce the friction loss and reduce fuel
consumption. The passenger safety aspect follows
from the increasingly stringent standards for
passenger head protection in a collision. In order to
meet these standards, further down-sizing of the
engine is desirable since it gives more collision-
absorption space in the engine compartment.
The downsizing and strengthening of
automotive valve springs (Figure 1) have been
pursued for the purposes described above. Valve
springs weigh only 20 to 50 grams each, but are
subject to several thousands cycles per minute of
repeated stress and are required to have extremely
high reliability over extended period of times.
The increasing stress applied to the valve
springs has led to the development of steels with
Valve spring
Fig. 1 Valve spring in automobile engine
21 KOBELCO TECHNOLOGY REVIEW NO. 26 DEC. 2005
Billet Hot-rolling Shaving Patenting Drawing Oil-tempering
Eddy-current testing Cold coiling Stress relieving Coil end grinding
（     ）
Nitriding Shot peening Strain aging Setting
Fig. 2 Manufacturing process of valve spring
higher fatigue strength and high sag resistance.1), 2)
Surface modification technologies have been
applied also to increase fatigue strengths. The
general process of spring production includes
nitriding and shot peening as shown in Figure 2.
This article describes the history and current
status of our development in the strengthening of
steels for the valve springs.
1. Strengthening of steels for valve spring
1.1 History of strengthening
There are two kinds of wires used for valve
springs: piano wires drawn from high-carbon steel
wire rods and oil-tempered wires quenched and
tempered after drawing.
Piano wires made in Sweden were widely used
for valve springs before the World War II. We
began development of high-carbon steel wires in
1930 and started the production of piano wires for
automotive valve springs after successful
developments in 1941. Our wires were used
mostly for the valve springs of aircraft engines in
the early days and came to be used in automobiles
later.3) In 1952 we succeeded in developing a wire
rod (KPR; Kobe Piano wire Rod) that compared
well with the piano wires made in Sweden.4)
After the war oil-tempered wires were
introduced from the USA. Oil-tempered carbon
wires and oil-tempered Cr-V wires were first
produced domestically in 1955 and were used
gradually in automobile engines.5)
The Si-Cr oil-tempered wire (SAE9254, JIS
SWOSC-V), having higher heat-resistance, began
to be used in 1964 for higher fatigue strength and
sag resistance, and has come to be used as today's
standard.
Table 1 compares the chemical compositions
of the spring wire steels for JIS and of the ones
developed by us. The progress of the development
is summarized in Figure 3. Flaws and
decarburization on wire surfaces are known to
 Table 1 Chemical compositions of wire rod for valve spring
(mass％)
C Si Mn Ni Cr V Steel grade
High Si-Cr-V steel Super high tensile 0.56 - 0.61 1.80 - 2.20 0.70- 1.00 0.20 - 0.40 0.85 - 1.05 0.05 - 0.15 KHV10N
Si-Cr-V steel High tensile 0.60 - 0.65 1.30 - 1.60 0.50 - 0.70 − 0.50 - 0.70 0.08 - 0.18 KHV7
Si-Cr steel SWOSC-V 0.51 - 0.59 1.20 - 1.60 0.50 - 0.80 − 0.50 - 0.80 − SAE9254
Cr-V steel SWOCV-V 0.45 - 0.55 0.15 - 0.35 0.65 - 0.95 − 0.80 - 1.10 0.15 - 0.25 SAE6150
Carbon steel SWO-V 0.60 - 0.75 0.12 - 0.32 0.60 - 0.90 − − − SAE1070

160 100

Ratio of valve spring steel (％)

(SAE9254＝100, 1×107 amplitude)

Developed
150 High Si-Cr-V steel steel
＋Nitriding 80
140 Regular
Fatigue strength

Si-Cr-V steel 60
130 ＋Nitriding
40
120
Si-Cr-V steel 20
110
High tensile
0
100 SAE9254 1990 1995 2000 2004
90 Fig. 4 Ratio of valve spring steel in Kobe Steel
1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
Year
Fig. 3 Trend of high strength steel for valve springs in Kobe
of the world wide usage of steel for valve springs
Steel
and will continue to increase in the future.

affect the fatigue strength of oil-tempered wires 1.2 Strengthening method

and we have developed technologies to reduce
flaws and decarburization, and to remove the Assuming no defect, the fatigue strength is
surface layer completely along the whole length calculated by the following equation.8)
of the wire by shaving.6) In the early 1980s we ……………………………………（1）
established technologies to evaluate and control Valve springs are subject to severe working
inclusions. 7) The technologies were applied to conditions at high temperatures under high
SAE9254 wire to improve the fatigue strength of stresses and for extended period of times. This
valve springs. results in fatigue fracture of the valve spring by
Further study on the optimization of chemical initiation at non-metallic inclusions larger than 10
composition led to the development of Si-Cr-V μ m. Murakami estimated 8) that the fatigue
steel in the mid 1980s, in which higher C content strength σw in the presence of internal defects such
increases the strength, and an addition of V as inclusions to be,
increases the softening resistance and refines the
1.56（HV＋120） （1−R）α
austenite grain size. The Si-Cr-V oil-tempered wire
has a tensile strength of 2,050MPa class, while the
σw＝
area 1/6
・
2 （   ）
………………（2）

standard oil-tempered wire of SAE9254 has where,

strength of about 1,900 MPa. The use of this steel
has improved fatigue strength by a factor of 1.1 = defect area, = average stress
compared to SAE9254. Additional nitriding The formula indicates that an increase in hardness
treatment improves fatigue strength by a factor of and reduction in defect-size are required to
approx. 1.3. improve fatigue strength.
High Si-Cr-V steel containing 2.0% Si was Improvements of fatigue strength have been
developed in the early 1990s to improve the achieved mainly by increasing the strengths of oil-
softening resistance. As a result, the tensile tempered wires, however, this approach has a
strength of the oil-tempered wire was increased to limit at a tensile strength of 1,800 MPa, above
2,200MPa class and additional improvement of which the fatigue strength tends to deteriorate1)
nitriding and shot-peening improved the fatigue due to the fracture at non-metallic inclusions as
strength of the SAE9254 by a factor of 1.4. shown in Figure 5. Further improvement of fatigue
Figure 4 shows the ratio between the high strength employs surface treatments such as
tensile-strength and regular steels for valve springs nitriding to increase surface hardness and shot-
made in our production. The use of high-tensile peening to add compressive residual stress. The
strength steels has increased to occupy about half compressive residual stress counteracts as the

KOBELCO TECHNOLOGY REVIEW NO. 26 DEC. 2005 22

 Initiation of fracture Chemical compositions (wt％) 18
Material Inclusion Surface Ｃ Si Mn Cr V
Si-Cr Steel ● ○ 0.55 1.40 0.70 0.70 − 16

Residual shear strain (×10−4 )

Cr-V Steel ▲ △ 0.67 0.25 0.75 0.50 0.20
Plain carbon steel − □ 0.82 0.25 0.45 − − 14
950
12
900
10
Fatigue strength (MPa)

850
8
800 6

750 4

700 2

650
0
500 550 600 650 700
600 Hardness (HV)
1,500 1,600 1,700 1,800 1,900 2,000 2,100 2,200
Tensile strength (MPa) Fig. 6 Relationship between core hardness and residual
shear strain
Fig. 5 Effect of tensile strength of steel wire for valve spring
on fatigue strength and on initiation site of fracture 750
SAE9254 Surface
700

average stress, thus reducing the effective stress. 650

On the other hand, increase of the tensile
Hardness (HV)
600
strength (increase of the core hardness) is effective
in improving the sag resistance as shown in Figure 550
6. 500
The following describes the detail of each
450
strengthening method. Core
1) Application of nitriding 400
Figure 7 shows the effect of nitriding 350
temperature on the surface hardness and core as-OT 400 450 500
hardness. Nitriding, generally processed at 400 Nitriding temperature (℃)

to 600 ℃, increases the surface hardness and Fig. 7 Relationship between nitriding temperature and
compressive residual stress of the spring, which hardness
improves the fatigue strength significantly.
However, the treatment tends to reduce the core SiO2
hardness, making it difficult to improve both
the fatigue strength and sag resistance 10 90
00

simultaneously. The improvement in the

17

20 80
1500

00
16

softening resistance of the oil-tempered wire is 30 00 70

1600

15
1700

00
14

effective in solving this problem. 40 60

2) Application of shot-peening Lower melting point 50

Shot-peening, which increases the compressive 140

0
40
150
residual stress and surface hardness, is effective 0
00

70 30
21

00
20

00

in improving the fatigue strengths of valve

1800
19

00

80 20
18

00
17
210 0

15
springs. Multi-step shot peening has been
220

14 00
0
230

160

00
0

1700

1900

90 10
240

2000

applied for the improvement of fatigue

250

0
0

strength.9) Recently, several technologies have

10 20 30
CaO (wt％) Al2O3
been reported including a method to increase
Fig. 8 Composition of inclusion
fatigue strength by improving the residual
stress by using fine shots10), 11), and a method to
increase fatigue strength by inducing nano- compositions of the inclusions should be
crystals at the surface through a severe shot- controlled to become lower melting point as
peening. Such technologies might be combined shown in Figure 8.12)
to achieve even higher strengths. In order to control the compositions in the
3) Control of inclusions region, the basicity of slag should be controlled
Inclusions of Al2O3, MgO-Al2O3 and SiO2 are according to the amount of Si and a minute
known to cause breakage of valve springs. The amount of Al should be added in optimum

23 KOBELCO TECHNOLOGY REVIEW NO. 26 DEC. 2005

 concentrations. Table 2 Properties of oil-tempered wire
Tensile strength Reduction of area γ grain
2. Properties of the super-high strength steel for (MPa) (％) size No.

valve springs Developed 2,157 46.4 14.0

We have developed a super-high strength valve 2,400

spring steel for the next generation, which has

Tensile strength (MPa)
2,200
fatigue strength even higher than that of high Si-
Cr-V steel. The following describes the properties 2,000
of the steel.
1,800
Developed steel
2.1 Concept of the composition design 1,600 High Si-Cr-V
SAE9254
1,400
Further additions of Cr and V to the high Si-Cr-V
60
steel improve nitriding and refine grain size.

Reduction of area (％)
55
Increased amount of Si improves sag resistance by
increasing temper softening resistance and by 50

inhibiting reduction of core hardness during the 45

nitriding process. 40 Developed steel

High Si-Cr-V
35
SAE9254
2.2 Properties of oil-tempered wire 30
300 350 400 450 500 550
Stress relief annealing temperature (℃)
Table 2 shows the mechanical properties and grain
size of an oil-tempered wire. A super-fine Fig. 9 Relationship between stress relief annealing
microstructure of austenite grain-size No.14 was temperature and mechanical properties
obtained. Oil-tempered wires, including the one
made of newly developed steel, were annealed at 160
(SAE9254＝100, 1×107 amplitude)

low temperatures for 20 min for stress relief and Developed steel
150 ＋Nitriding
the results are shown in Figure 9. The newly
developed steel shows a higher softening resistance 140
Fatigue strength

High Si-Cr-V
compared to the high Si-Cr-V steel and shows 130 ＋Nitriding
a smaller decrease in strength at higher
temperatures. 120

110
2.3 Fatigue properties of the spring SAE9254
100

The fatigue strengths of the springs made of 90

1,800 1,900 2,000 2,100 2,200
different steels are shown in Figure 10. The newly Tensile strength of oil-tempered wire (MPa)
developed steel with nitriding can achieve a
Fig.10 Relationship between fatigue strength and tensile
fatigue-strength higher by a factor of 1.55
strength of oil-tempered wire for valve spring
compared to the SAE9254. This allows the
reduction of the spring weight by half (Photo 1
shows examples of valve springs made of
conventional and newly developed steels).

3. The future perspective and conclusions

The global issues on environment and safety call

for safer automobiles with lower environmental
burden. The demand for high-strength spring steel
is becoming higher because valve springs are
effective in cutting CO2 emissions, in improving
fuel-consumption, and in downsizing of engines. SAE9254 Developed steel
The strengthening of the valve spring, which Photo 1 Valve springs made of SAE9254 and developed
originally started in Japan, is accelerating both in steel

KOBELCO TECHNOLOGY REVIEW NO. 26 DEC. 2005 24

 Europe and in the USA and further improvements
will proceed more rapidly.
The modifications of the spring process-
technologies, including improved shot-peening and
application of new surface treatments, will be
needed for the further improvements.
Further improvements of reliability are required
for the application of the super-high strength valve
spring and it is essential to reduce non-metallic
inclusion sizes. Even higher strength will be
obtained with advancement of steel making
technologies which limit the size of non-metallic
inclusions to less than 10 to 20μm.
We will continue to play a role in environmental
protection and contribute to society by providing
high-strength steels for valve spring with high
reliability.
Acknowledgements
We would like to express special gratitude to the
NHK SPRING Co., Ltd. and Shinko Wire Co. Ltd.
for their cooperation in the development of the
super-high strength steel for valve springs.
25 KOBELCO TECHNOLOGY REVIEW NO. 26 DEC. 2005
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(2000).
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No.4, p.29 (1968).
5) Japan wire products association, Wire products reading book
(revision 3), p.170 (1980).
6) Y. Nakamura, et al., R&D Kobe Steel Engineering Reports,
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Inclusions, p.90 (1993), Yokendo Ltd.
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